Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics

There was a basic dispute about a problem of utilitarianism which emerged from within the school itself. Bentham was accused by Mill of having devised a system which was grounded in the lower or physical pleasures. The intricate system of measurement suggested by Bentham is indicative of the materialistic nature of his philosophy. Bentham suggested that the pleasure or pain upon which the ethics of an act and its consequences were to be based and assessed could be accurately measured by considering seven elements: "its intensity, its duration, its certainty or uncertainty, its propinquity or remoteness, its fecundity, its purity, its extent" (Bentham, 1986, p. 529).

Bentham himself acknowledged the absurdity of his system when he concluded that "It is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment" (Bentham, 1986, p. 530).

Mill sought to correct Bentham's errors by emphasizing the quality of the pleasure being sought: "It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that . . . the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone" (Mill, 1986, p. 533).

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an ethics emphasizes the act of the will, whereas Mill suggests that the will should be engaged to do ethical acts which increase community pleasure, but at some point the acts will become such elements of habit that the individual will act almost mechanically in the name of that greatest-pleasure-for-thegreatest-number. Kantian ethics would keep the will more active throughout the moral education and practice of the individual in society. The "categorical imperative" of Kantian ethics is the element which distinguishes it most from utilitarianism, and which leads Kant to include God finally in his ethical formula, another difference of great importance between his ethics and those of utilitarianism. Kant explains this element: "If the action would be good solely as a means to something else, the imperative is hypothetical; if the action is represented as good in itself and therefore as necessary, in virtue of its principle, for a will which of itself accords with reason, then the imperative is categorical" (Kant, 1986, p. 584). In other words, Kant would indict utilitarianism for being entirely based on hypothetical imperatives. All of the prescribed acts of utilitarianism are based on the means-to-an-end argument aimed a
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Approximate Word count = 1891
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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